SANFL don't have an Emergency umpire during the season, only during the Finals. Interchanges are monitored by Champion Data.

My understanding is the Champion Data official went up to North bench at start of last quarter and said you only have two on the bench. They told him one of their players was injured and down in the change rooms (which they honestly thought as they had couple of injuries). At the two minute mark the Champion Data guy noticed one of the numbers he had listed on the bench was on the field, he then brought that to Norths attention who went "****", and then tried desperately to get a player off, which happened at the 3.38 minute mark.

Eagles knew none of this at the time, not till they asked Emergency Umpire what was going on, the player was already off by then.

This narrative is not 100% perfect but is pretty close to the mark. In the minute and a half (roughly - the CD guy wasn’t sure exactly when he approached North but thought it was about 2 mins in) before Allmond came off, a North trainer went down to the rooms to see who the third player on the bench was, realised there was nobody there, reported that back to the bench, they worked out they had 19, had their “****” moment, shouted at the nearest player (Allmond) to get off, he didn’t come because it wasn’t his rotation yet, then they sent a runner out to get him.

All the stuff about North knowing 30 or 45 seconds into the quarter is garbage.